I’m on the IRS hit list, too. I came here at 13, and I’ve been a citizen since 1979. I don’t have a U.S. passport or any U.S. earnings. But the IRS wants to confiscate a large chunk of my retirement savings. Many of my friends are in the same fix. They send me e-mails saying things like, “Have you filled out the FBAR [Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts] yet?” The amnesty deadline has come and gone, and we still have no idea what to do.

“It’s not the back taxes that will kill you,” Brian told me. “It’s the penalties.” It turns out the IRS can fine you for every unreported bank account, mutual fund and RRSP – at a rate of $10,000 per offence per year. It can also confiscate as much as 25 per cent of the maximum amount you’ve held in each account. This is so absurd it can’t possibly be true. But it is.

The Americans have an unusual view of citizenship. Once an American, always an American, even if you left the U.S. the day you were born. The U.S. is the only country that requires its citizens to file a tax return and report their worldwide income, no matter where they live and what other citizenship they hold. Nobody can explain why the IRS has suddenly decided to enforce this law, which is aimed at money-launderers with offshore bank accounts. I guess the Americans need the money.

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As many as a million U.S.-born residents of Canada are caught in this Kafkaesque nightmare. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has written an indignant letter to leading U.S. newspapers. All of us are getting wildly conflicting professional advice. At first, Brian and his wife, who are by no means wealthy, decided to come clean. But when they were told they’d be on the hook for $250,000, they changed their minds.